


The Fog

by hutchabelle



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 08:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6463822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hutchabelle/pseuds/hutchabelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Capitol hijacked Peeta. Primrose Everdeen is anxious to help him recover and rediscover his love for her sister. To Prim’s surprise, Peeta doesn’t seem nearly as interested in Katniss as he does in someone else. Prompt: What if?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fog

“Peeta!  Peeta, it’s okay.”

 

I hear the voice from far away but can’t place the speaker. Fog swirls behind my eyes as I struggle to come back to myself. I fight against the restraints, hoping the metal that cuts into my wrists will help me center.

 

“I can’t get him calm.” Panic laces the words, but I don’t have the energy or wherewithal to worry about anyone’s terror but my own.

 

A syringe swims in front of my eyes, and I tense seconds before the needle pierces my flesh. A sharp scream cuts through the room, but it’s quickly replaced by a wave of comfort that floods through me. As my muscles relax, I feel a small, soft hand cradle my own.

 

“It’s okay, Peeta. You’re safe now,” she says. I blink twice and focus on a blonde, blue-eyed teenager. The coloring is different, but her mouth and nose are exactly like Katniss’.

 

My heart jumps at the realization. Katniss is— What is she? She’s the enemy. She’s evil. She’s a mutt. She killed my family. She murdered most of my home district with her arrow. She— She’s the girl I’ve loved since I was five.

 

I don’t understand. She can’t be the same person, and this angel who sits with me obviously has no relation to someone so awful. This girl is… She’s kind and compassionate, something Katniss has rarely shown outside of her close friends and family. I’m not either of those anymore. This girl is a better person than I’ll ever dream of being.

 

My eyes flutter shut, and I murmur, “Prim.” It’s the last thing I remember before I slip into darkness.

 

I don’t know how long I’m under. I have no idea how much or what they’ve injected into my body, but I’m still relatively relaxed when I hear chatter coming from my bedside.

 

“How much longer do you think we can put her off, Haymitch? I’m shocked she hasn’t been knocking down the door to get to him since she’s been out of the hospital.”

 

It’s Prim again. I can tell by the gentleness of her tone, which is followed quickly by the gruff words of my former mentor.

 

“We’ll just keep trying, Prim. For however long it takes.” He pauses before admitting, “I don’t think she’ll keep going without him. Not in any constructive way, that is. She’s a mess—frantic, paralyzed with worry. She needs him more than any of us want to admit.”

 

A small hand smooths the sheets over me, but I don’t react. I want to hear more before they realize I’m awake. I need to know what Katniss is really like, and they won’t talk honestly and openly about her if they think I’m listening. Everyone in District 13 keeps trying to convince me that the red-eyed monster in my mind isn’t really Katniss. How can I believe them when I can barely comprehend that there’s a District 13?

 

That soft, insistent voice breaks through my inner dialogue, and I concentrate on the conversation.

 

“She can’t sleep, Haymitch,” Prim admits with pain in her words. “She screams for him every night, and he’s not there to comfort her. I don’t know how to help her besides facilitating his recovery.”

 

Her admission creates a war inside me. Somewhere deep inside is the surety of a love for Katniss that’s inherent in my very being. I’ve adored her for over a decade, watched her blossom, defied my mother for her, fought Cato to help her win the Games. The thought of her hurting causes a stinging discomfort that won’t go away.

 

Then something far more primal surges through me in defiance of my tender feelings for her. Rage battles with kindness, and I hear my heart monitor beep more rapidly. The conversation stops as they realize I’m no longer unconscious.

 

My eyes pop open, and I glare at Haymitch. He nods at me, but I snap, “No one helped me in the arena. She can take care of herself. That’s what mutts do.” My tone is icy, cutting, and Prim’s eyes widen in disbelief.

 

“She’s not a mutt, Peeta. You love her,” Katniss’ sister insists, and I grip the sheets tightly in my fists.

 

“Don’t,” I order in a sharp bite, but she refuses to comply. Instead, she pulls up a chair and settles next to my bed.

 

“Peeta,” she begins with a shuddering breath that catches in her chest. She starts again after composing herself. “Peeta, how are you feeling?”

 

I watch her palm advance toward me and flinch when she brushes the curls from my forehead. Her fingers are cold and barely graze my skin, but I recognize a heat that I haven’t experienced in a very long while. Silence stretches between us as my eyes flit from one blank space on the ceiling to another. It’s clear Prim’s patience could outlast anyone’s, so I finally give in.

 

“I’m strapped to a table, my wrists are covered in bruises and cuts, and my arms have more syringe marks than a morphling addict’s. And on top of that, people—you included—keep trying to convince me that I’m in love with a mutt who killed my entire family and tried to destroy Panem,” I manage to bite through gritted teeth. “How do you think I feel, Prim?”

 

Her eyes soften and glisten with a hint of moisture that makes me feel remarkably guilty. As angry and terrified as I am, the last thing I want to do is make a young girl cry—even if she is the sister of Panem’s worst enemy.

 

“I think you feel very lost and vulnerable and confused, Peeta, and I don’t blame you for any of it,” she murmurs. I’m sure her words are intended to be soothing, but they have exactly the opposite effect on me.

 

“Why would you blame me?” My voice is hard and cutting, unlike anything I remember from before the Capitol took me prisoner. “Why would you blame me when it’s your sister—” My voice rises to a scream. “Katniss is a mutt! She’s going to kill me! She’s going to kill you too, Prim! She’s not human!”

 

She squeezes my hand as I thrash on the bed. My wrists burn as the metal cuts into them, and I become fascinated with the dark red fluid that oozes from the wounds.

 

“It’s okay, Peeta. It’s okay.” As she stands, she leans over me and into my line of vision. Her blue eyes turn to silver and then match the red of my blood as she morphs into a cruel rendering of the girl who never loved me.

 

My heart pounds in my chest as I gasp and huff for air. A loud beeping noise fills the room until it feels like it’s splitting my head in two. Prim yells for help, and a white-coated doctor rushes in with another syringe. As the needle plunges into the crease in my elbow, I howl in panic.

 

“Sleep, Peeta,” Prim whispers into my ear as her fingers slip between mine. “Sleep, friend. You’ll feel better when you wake.”

 

Her eyes fill with tears when a moan escapes me, and then I’m drifting in blackness again.

 

I lose track of the number of times I wake to Prim holding my hand, soothing me as I fight my terror, and reassuring me that her sister isn’t what the Capitol convinced me she is. Haymitch tries to help too, but I’m still so angry with him that I can barely stand to see his face.

 

Finnick stops by after a confusing number of days filled with a scream-filled fog, and it’s the first time I can concentrate without panicking since I was rescued. He begs me to forgive him for his part in my capture before sharing his good fortune. I have to bite my bottom lip so I don’t break his heart about stories of Annie’s shrieks of pain when she was tortured in the cell just a few down from mine. 

 

After another stretch of time, she comes to see me, too. Annie glows when she smiles at me. She looks so different than she did when I last saw her as she was dragged from her cell and past me on her way to— I can’t think about that. I can’t or I’ll lose my mind, and I’m so happy to see someone I recognize.

 

They want me to decorate their wedding cake. Annie’s hands tremble when Finnick asks me, and I can’t refuse. There’s been too much suffering, too much pain. If I can contribute at all to their joy, I know I have to do it.

 

I spend hours rediscovering how to sculpt frosting into waves. My hands shake the entire time as recollections of my family and years in the bakery flood my mind. Memory after memory scrolls as I work, and tears slide down my cheeks. I wipe them on my sleeves before they can fall onto the cake and wash the sugary waves with saltwater.

 

Katniss comes to see me after the wedding, which I don’t attend. Thankfully I’m no longer strapped to the bed when she arrives. Instead, I’m able to sit and meet her in the eye when she appears, eyes curious and hopeful until I douse that light.

 

“Well, you’re a piece of work, aren’t you?” I drawl, and she turns to leave. Her shoulders slump slightly, and I can feel the hurt radiating from her. I consider stopping her, but an image flashes before my eyes that triggers another episode.

 

Delly comes to see me more often than she probably wants to. She tries to convince me that the fuzziness in my mind isn’t real, that the Capitol is who put it there and not a mutt-Katniss. Her voice is so familiar, so comforting, but it also brings nostalgia for my life before my home was firebombed and my family was taken from me—because of her. At least that’s what my brain tells me, even if it’s not true.

 

I don’t know how to separate what Delly and Finnick and others tell me from what my mind registers. Haymitch comes to see me, but we sit in stoic silence until he mutters gruffly that he’s glad I’m all right before escaping in hopes of finding some white liquor. I understand it’s outlawed in District 13, but that doesn’t seem to stop my former mentor from trying to find a stash. He’s a piece of work too, and I don’t mean it as a compliment.

 

Prim visits me more often than anyone else, and it’s her presence that helps me fight through the fog the most. She brings the sun with her when she comes, and her calming presence assists in fighting through to a clear mind.

 

She talks to me every day, holds my hands, calms me with stories of home as waves of morphling flow through me until I can barely remember anything that hurt me from District 12.

 

“Do you remember the cave, Peeta?” she prods gently and clutches my hand when my heart rate increases.

 

“She tried to kill me, Prim,” I whimper. Those memories of her leaning over me with a spoonful of berries, her eyes bright as she lied to me before I slipped into unconsciousness, terrify me when I don’t have morphling to numb my horror.

 

“Shhh, Peeta. It’s okay. She didn’t try to kill you. She was trying to save your life,” she soothes with her words. Her thumb rubs across the back of my hand until my skin prickles and flushes.

 

“Why do you defend her?” I ask after what feels like months of therapy. “You’re not like her, Prim. Why try to convince me she’s okay?”

 

She considers me for several moments before she responds. “I’m not defending her, Peeta. I’m trying to help you find your way back to her. You love her, whether you remember it or not.”

 

“I don’t, and I don’t want to remember if I did,” I spit, venom obvious in my tone.

 

“You don’t mean that,” she chastises gently. “Don’t you want to be yourself again?”

 

“Not if that means remembering pining after someone who didn’t care about me.” My voice cracks, and I cough to cover my embarrassment. It’s humiliating to know how obvious I was about my feelings before the Capitol hijacked me. No wonder I was so easy to exploit if everyone knew how I panted after Katniss like a love sick puppy as she ran to Gale every chance she got.

 

“That’s not fair, Peeta. She cared about you—still cares about you more than she’ll ever admit.”

 

My head snaps upwards, and my eyes catch hers. “Then why should I be the one to take the step? Why should I try to find my way back to her if she can’t even find the compassion to understand what they did to me?”

 

Prim’s blue eyes sparkle with moisture, and my heart clenches at her despair. Seeing her in pain hurts more than I want to admit. This time I’m the one who reaches out to provide consolation. My trembling hand clasps hers as her chin quivers, and I can’t help the urge to try to make it stop. My thumb brushes across her lips, and her eyes widen in shock.

 

“What are you doing?” she gasps, her voice rough and trembling.

 

“I’m not sure,” I admit.

 

How did I not notice how pretty Prim’s become in the past few years? As Katniss and I grew, the younger sister blossomed into a beautiful young woman whose kindheartedness makes her blue eyes shine more than the lights reflected in them. Her pink lips feel softer than the tulip petals I used to pick in the backyard. Her hair waves over her shoulders, and I suddenly want to bury my fingers there and card through it until it falls in silky showers down her back.

 

I’m suddenly aware of how small she is compared to me. Tiny next to my broken body, but I’m starting to pack muscles back on my frame despite limited access to anything except the gruel they serve in District 13. What I wouldn’t give for a fresh loaf of warm bread.

 

She remains frozen in front of me, and I allow myself to fall into the fog for a few blissful seconds. Her kindness draws me to her; her calming presence soothes my tortured hours; and her features remind me of a past love so pure it makes my heart hurt.

 

Yet, she doesn’t make my insides ache the way her older sister did. Prim’s face isn’t accompanied by demonic eyes and bruises on my body. The girl who stands in front of me wants to help me, not hurt me, not ignore me, not make me feel unwanted.

 

“Peeta, we can’t,” she protests but so quietly I can barely hear her.

 

I take a tentative step toward her and smile shyly as her face flushes beneath my stare. “Yes, we can. We can do anything we want.” She backs away from me, but she doesn’t drop my hand. She’s agitated, but she’s not fleeing from me the way Katniss did.

 

My vision clouds as Prim knocks into the wall, and I lean down to press my lips against hers. She inhales sharply as my mouth brushes hers, and I wonder if she’ll be as comforting the next time I experience an episode.

 

It’s so sweet, so innocent and pure, and I allow myself to enjoy it since I’ve had so few chances to relish anything since… I can’t remember the last time I felt free. Before the hijacking, the Games haunted me. Before that, my futile love for Katniss and fear of my mother kept me in shadow. Now Prim is my sun, and suddenly my fog turns orange—soft, like the sunset—and my world is right.

 

Prim doesn’t say anything when I release her from our kiss. She leaves the room quickly, but I know she’ll be back. The fog’s finally lifted.

 

A few days later, Prim returns. My heart leaps at the sight of her, but she’s distant, both physically and mentally. I reach for her, desperate to feel her warmth again, but she shakes her head firmly.

 

“Don’t do this, Peeta. You love my sister, not me,” she insists in a quiet, firm voice. When I try to protest, she cuts me off. “You’re starting training today. From this time forward, you are Soldier Mellark. I tried to tell them you weren’t well enough. I tried to protect you, but President Coin insists your behavior shows mental strength. I told her it shows delusion.”

 

“I’m not deluded,” I assert, but she’s having none of it.

 

“We’ll continue your therapy—continue morphling treatments with memory recover therapy—but you’ll begin your training this afternoon.”

 

That’s when I lose her. When I become a soldier, Prim slips away from me, no matter how hard I try to hold on to her. It feels similar to another time in my life, but I can’t quite grasp what it is. 

 

The fog coats my mind more often than I’d like without her frequent visits, and it becomes oppressive when I end up in the Capitol against my will, the newest member of the Star Squad. It’s during those days, separated from Prim, forced into close proximity with Katniss, that I realize I lost Katniss the same way. The closer I tried to hold her, the more she slipped away.

 

My dreams become nightmares, filled with images of Katniss’ back as she walks away from the lightning tree. As she disappears into the foliage, she morphs into Prim, and I lose both the Everdeen girls over and over.

 

Katniss kisses me in the sewers, her eyes blazing red, but the pressure of her lips helps me stabilize enough to hold on, even though mist clouds my vision. By the time we’re in Tigris’ basement, I fear Prim is right since I’m inexplicably drawn to Katniss. When she hugs me goodbye, I don’t want to let go at the same time I wish I was back in the hospital with the smaller, kinder sister. When the parachutes explode, I almost lose them both. All I can do is throw my cape over Katniss and block the flames.

 

As the smoke clears, the fog lifts for good. I realize this would have happened anyway. I have enough kindness and compassion of my own. What I need is fire and heat to burn away the haze, and only Katniss can give me that.

 

So after, when I ask whether it’s real or not real, I hold my breath until she tells me real.


End file.
